Thoughts on a Alienware 38 Curved Gaming Monitor - AW3821DW

grizzly

While I wait for better card availability I'm still rocking a 1080. What are peoples thoughts on buying this Alienware 38 Curved Gaming Monitor - AW3821DW from Dell for €1,500? I would probably have to run at a lower res (from its native 3840 x 1600) to get decent frames until I upgrade.

I'm not a massive fan of curved monitors, but since I got a curved 55" TV I am warming to them.

Homelander

Well putting aside that obviously you would ideally need a much better card, I find the biggest problem with monitors of that size and width is how close you're sitting to it.

I had a 35" ultrawide for a time and while it was a beautiful monitor it was also one of the worst purchases I ever made. Even though I had a deep desk, for playing online FPS games it was just too big and I ended up scanning the screen often.

I suppose it really depends on how far you will be from the screen but also what sort of games you play. They're fantastic monitors but definitely don't rush into buying one.

dmigsy

Don't pay €1500 for one anyway if you do go for it. Call Dell sales or get on their webchat and ask them for their best price. I did that and paid €1133 for mine. If you don't get the number you want, call them again or try another chat. Fantastic monitor.

K.O.Kiki

The only downsides to it really are:

• GPU-limited - it's essentially a 4K monitor with less vertical pixels. So for performance, look at 4K benchmarks and add add 30%.
• G-Sync ONLY - not really suited to AMD cards
• Not the best HDR - it's HDR600 but you need to lower refresh rate to 120Hz to get the true 10-bit colours.
• My one has noticeable IPS glow.
• Software has to support ultra-wide.

Having said that, the curve is barely noticeable, and I'm in no rush to replace mine yet.

I also got mine for <1'200 with haggling.

Robert ninja

If you've got this kind of money for a monitor you really should be going OLED with HDR. I'd also recommend against getting curved monitors at all. They have their use cases but they're harder to fit into more setups. You definitely should be going ultra wide if you're dead set on curved. My friend has a 16:9 curved screen and it's utterly useless. Makes it a nightmare when we're trying to watch something together on it because curved is for single-user use.

Cuddlesworth

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The only downsides to it really are:

• GPU-limited - it's essentially a 4K monitor with less vertical pixels. So for performance, look at 4K benchmarks and add add 30%.
• G-Sync ONLY - not really suited to AMD cards
• Not the best HDR - it's HDR600 but you need to lower refresh rate to 120Hz to get the true 10-bit colours.
• My one has noticeable IPS glow.
• Software has to support ultra-wide.

Having said that, the curve is barely noticeable, and I'm in no rush to replace mine yet.

I also got mine for <1'200 with haggling.

Weird aspect ratio to boot.

deceit

I've the Acer Predator X38P (pretty similar to this). With using ultrawides I would never go back and I'm already looking to get the Alienware model for my Linux set up. For movies ultrawides are much better but TV shows not so much as they usually only use 16/9. For games, nothing beats them in my opinion.
The only issue for me is lack of freesync as I'm wanting to get a 6900XT for my other pc.

grizzly

Robert ninja wrote: »

Makes it a nightmare when we're trying to watch something together on it because curved is for single-user use.

Did you try pushing your faces together?

Robert ninja

grizzly wrote: »

Did you try pushing your faces together?

Thanks it worked